The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope

The Palliser series includes: Can You Forgive Her? Phineas Finn, The Eustace Diamonds, Phineas Redux, The Prime Minister, and The Dukes Children. According to Wikipedia: Anthony Trollope ( 1815 – 1882 ) became one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era. Some of Trollopes best-loved works, known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, revolve around the imaginary county of Barsetshire; he also wrote penetrating novels on political, social, and gender issues and conflicts of his day. Trollope has always been a popular novelist. Noted fans have included Sir Alec Guinness (who never travelled without a Trollope novel), former British Prime Ministers Harold Macmillan and Sir John Major, economist John Kenneth Galbraith, American novelists Sue Grafton and Dominick Dunne and soap opera writer Harding Lemay. Trollopes literary reputation dipped somewhat during the last years of his life, but he regained the esteem of critics by the mid-twentieth century. Of all novelists in any country, Trollope best understands the role of money. Compared with him even Balzac is a romantic. — W. H. Auden